I cannot imagine the horror and heartbreak in that family. The poor nine-year-old will have to live with the trauma of accidentally killing his sister for the rest of his life. The mother, faced with the loss of one baby, forced to comfort the killer, who is also her baby. I CANNOT HANDLE THIS.

I know this is a freak accident, but I can't help it, what is WITH giving even toy GUNS to children? Yes, we teach our children responsibility. How to handle even toy weapons. Respecting firearms, staying clear of the gun safes, never to point a gun at someone, even if you are joking. But they are children. Kids don't listen. They don't take things seriously. They think they are the exemption. They WILL point the gun at each other. They WILL shoot each other.

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I know that anything can be turned into a weapon by a child messing around. I grew up with a guy who had lost an eye to his brother's golf club. My own toddler nearly lost an eye when his brother was swinging a wooden duck by its pull string--the scar just under his eyebrow haunts me, only a few millimeters down...

But despite these incidents, those toys aren't meant to hurt or kill things, and BB guns are. Maybe I'm just Ralphie's mom, but I don't understand why you'd ever buy your kid a working gun, because even if it's a toy, it still shoots things. You can't have a constant eye on your children, even the best parents have to use the bathroom sometimes.

Explain it to me. What do I not understand? Why a BB gun? Do you think they teach responsibility? Do you consider them critical for a full childhood?

Understanding the effects that toys have on your child’s development is extremely beneficial since you’ll be able to understand how your child, as an individual, understands the world around them as well as the best kind of toys that will benefit them the most.

I am writing this month from Perth, Australia. With my husband I am on a speaking tour with six stops in Australia and then five in China. It is an amazing, life-changing opportunity to learn about the culture of families and their history first-hand. The story of one group of families here is as heart-wrenching as the history of African Americans in the U.S.